MTNL and BSNL have joined hands to lay a submarine cable system to connect India to South-East Asia and the West Asia, to provide international bandwidth for their own as well as other commercial requirements.
Strengthening their presence in the international long distance telephony segment, state-run telecom companies BSNL and MTNL are likely to finalise the proposed joint venture company for setting up a submarine cable link before this fiscal.
Close on the heels of cellular operators announcing the launch of one-paisa-per-second billing scheme for all local/STD calls, roaming services and SMS, MTNL has slashed mobile tariffs to half-a-paisa per second on home network.
'BSNL employee cost is Rs 14,500 crore and we anticipate that around 80,000 should opt for VRS.'
Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd is extending its lifetime validity cards to post-paid mobile segment, under which users have to pay Rs 800 as one-time charge for rent-free connection lifelong and 80 paise a minute for local calls.
Top companies have grabbed a bigger pie of their sectors in the pandemic period, leading to a further rise in market concentration in many industries as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The HHI score, which indicates competitive intensity in an industry (or a lack of it), reached a new high in FY21 as bigger firms raised their revenue market shares either organically or through mergers and acquisitions. A higher HHI score indicates a rise in market concentration in favour of a few firms while a lower score means that the industry's revenue is more evenly divided among many companies
Work on BSNL, MTNL sell-off plans to begin
Oil explorer ONGC again emerged as the highest profit-making PSU of the country during 2012-13 while telecom major BSNL turned out to be the biggest loss-making enterprise, says the Economic Survey.
The development marks a watershed moment in India's telecom history since fixed-line or landline connections formed the final segment where a State-owned operator was in the top spot.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
The Telecommunications Bill, 2023, which was passed by a voice vote after a short debate, also allows the Centre to take possession of a telecom network in case of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety.
The company, which has a subscriber base of 120 million, also plans to raise funds via a bonds issue. The company's impending 4G launch is also expected in the second half of the current financial year for which it would invest Rs 12,000 crore, partly through bonds.
Mobile operators with the exception of Reliance Jio are in a much worse financial condition than expected earlier. The combined borrowing of the four incumbent operators - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) - reached an all-time high of Rs 3.85 trillion at the end of March this year. The companies' combined debt was up 22.4 per cent year-on-year last financial year against 8.3 per cent growth in their borrowing in the previous year. As a result, the incumbent operators' debt-equity ratio shot up to an unsustainably high level of 6.83X at the end of March this year from 2.3X at the end of March 2020. This was largely due to big losses reported by all these companies last financial year. The four incumbent operators racked up combined net losses of Rs 70,000 crore in FY21.
The first ever auction of non-core assets through the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management's (DIPAM) asset monetisation portal has failed to garner adequate response for land assets of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) that was expected to garner at least Rs 470 crore. The DIPAM has asked its property consultants to identify issues in the bidding criteria that can be resolved. In November 2021, the DIPAM had listed six properties of BSNL and MTNL for sale through its new e-bidding portal for asset monetisation portal developed by state-run MSTC.
The list is of companies declared sick as on March 31, 2014.
The number of mobile phone connections in India rose by 1.96 million in March, after reducing by 1.06 million in February, latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) showed. The number of new connections have hit a 9-month high. In these past 9-months, the total number of wireless (mobile phone) subscriptions had reduced on 5 occasions, the data shows.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the Delhi high court verdict granting bail to former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey in a money laundering case related to alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping of National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees.
Margaret Alva claims she is unable to make phone calls after dialing 'friends in the BJP'
The Delhi high court on Thursday granted bail to former Mumbai police commissioner Sanjay Pandey in connection with a money-laundering case related to alleged illegal phone-tapping and snooping of National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees.
The fall represented the second straight month of decline in subscribers. Users in the segment had reduced by 3.66 million in September, shrinking for the first time in seven months.
The number of mobile phone subscribers in India decreased by 3.66 million in September to 1.17 billion, representing the first fall in seven months, according to the latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). The number of subscribers had last fallen by 3.7 million back in February. In recent months, it rose by 1.08 million in August, 0.64 million in July, and 1.89 million in June.
The circumstances under which United Carbide Chief Warren Anderson suddenly fled the country after he arrived in the aftermath of Bhopal Gas Tragedy will continue to remain in mystery with the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, which could also have thrown some light, unable to provide phone call details.
The department for promotion of industry and internal trade has asked the telecom department and State-owned BSNL to put on hold the tender for setting up 4G network, valued at Rs 9,000 crore, after allegations emerged that the tender favoured foreign companies. The tender was floated by BSNL in March under the new management for setting up the 4G network.
The prime minister's directive comes in the wake of telecom minister A Raja seeking his intervention for early resolution of BSNL's tender controversy.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has rejected a proposal by Communications Minister A Raja for refund of the Rs 29,598 crore paid by state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited for third generation (3G) and broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum.
The top three fixed line players Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharti Airtel reported a revenue decline.
Three US nationals are expected to give their testimony in the 26/11 terror attack case through videoconferencing while two Federal Bureau of Investigation officers are likely to appear in person before the special court in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Taking cue from holy book Bhagwad Gita, the draft telecom bill has equated spectrum to the soul which remains immortal and has used the analogy to propose its use for continuity of telecom service of entities that face insolvency.
While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has approved the access of TV on mobiles, service providers still cannot stream live TV channels on to the handset due to spectrum allocation from the Ministry of Information and Broadcast. However, since the regulations do not allow a direct transmission of TV channels, service providers as well as content providers have started using a technology called Unicast which provides content to end-user on a one-on-one basis.
BSNL has slashed rates of all such calls from its landline network to the level of local call rates of Rs 0.80-1.20, depending upon the rate plan, with a pulse of three minutes.
Operators Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, Aircel, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd and Idea Cellular might have to fork out over Rs 11,200 crore for having spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz, if the government accepts the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommendations.
In April, DoT introduced a graded penalty system under which operators pay Rs 50,000 per subscriber if more than 20 per cent of their user base is without valid identity documents.
Four new players will be given spectrum along with one existing operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam or Mahanagar Telephone Nigam - in their respective circles.
BSNL was formed on Oct 1, 2000 and it had decided to included all the Central level Government Officers and employees, who were working on DOT basis, in BSNL fold and accordingly, group 'B' and group 'C' employees and group 'D' officers were included in BSNL. But still, the officers of group 'A', currently working as GM and DGM, have not been included in BSNL and they have been working on deputation as central level administrative officers.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd launched on Thursday its multi-play service offering Internet Protocol television and video-on-demand to its broadband customers.
BSNL, MTNL respond to Vavasi despite advice to the contrary
Telecom services across the country are expected to be hit following Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited employees' indefinite strike from Wednesday, demanding immediate placement of equipment orders for expansion of its mobile network.
The all-India reserve price of a 3G licence is Rs 2,020 crore (Rs 20.2 billion).
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has got two Mhz of additional spectrum from Department of Telecom to support its growing mobile subscriber base in the country.
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